


Endgame

by rillrill



Series: Insurance [5]
Category: Veep
Genre: Accidental Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Constipation, I'm Sorry, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:15:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3914281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>So now they’re almost three years into this and it’s probably too late to go back.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

**Author's Note:**

> Oh-fucking-boy. Where do I start. Question mark.
> 
> A while ago, I asked [onlytheshortones](http://archiveofourown.org/users/onlytheshortones/pseuds/onlytheshortones) what her idea for a "happy-ish ending" (air quotes implied) for these two might be. She responded with [this post on Tumblr](http://swagamemn0n.tumblr.com/post/117736515110/ahhh-just-do-2-with-the-fuckboys-i-think), which immediately spawned a thousand words of emotional fic-vomit from me, and with permission I just... took it and ran with it. And here we are. Obviously this is highly canon-divergent, self-indulgent, and just pure wish-fulfillment. Read it with all these caveats in mind.
> 
> S/O to the whole fuckboy squad for enabling and encouraging this into existence. I am not solely to blame for this monster. To Armando Iannucci, I'm sorry about this, but to paraphrase the great poet Selena Gomez, the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wanted to write more than ten thousand words of get-together fic for these two trashcans.)  
> 

**I.**

It wasn't inevitable until it was.

At least, that’s what Jonah tells himself the day he realizes that they’ve inadvertently become a couple. A real couple, not just this nebulous in-between _whatever it is_. The fact is, they’ve been having sex for at least a year – probably closer to a year and a half – and he’s pretty sure it’s been exclusive for almost a year by now. At least, it has been on his part, and for all the big game Dan talks about himself, he barely has time to eat and sleep, so if he’s seeing anyone other than Jonah, it’s got to be under the employ of some kind of time-travel technology or some shit like that.

It started casually, sporadically, fighting turning to fucking more often than not. Then it became more regular. It’s not normal until it is; until Jonah finds himself expecting a call or a text every few days like clockwork. He learns to feel it out. He lets Dan make the first move, but quickly learns how to predict them; picks up on the jittery, wired vibes Dan puts out, like a junkie itching for a fix. A fix. _God._

There’s something oddly powerful about being someone’s dirty little secret. What they have is mutually destructive but also oddly indestructible. It’s a fuse burning at both ends, and Jonah knows that Dan’s much more concerned about word getting out than he is himself. It keeps the delicate balance of power in line. They have too much leverage on each other for the scale to ever really tip.

But he never knows where he stands with Dan. Not really. What they are to each other changes from week to week and even from day to day at times. And so far, he’s always been okay with this. It’s never predictable, and it never gets boring. But then he realizes that it’s been a year, and everything feels different.

 

* * *

 

**II.**

This is what happens: he swipes through on the Timehop notification on his phone at 9:47 A.M. and is greeted by a tweet from a year before. It’s innocuous enough – _“Hitting up Third Shift for pre-St. Paddy’s celebration”_ – but it immediately brings back a memory that couldn’t be clearer. Dan, in a green plaid shirt, holding two pints of Guinness and rolling his eyes about a date who had to leave early. Jonah, shrugging it off, offering to buy the next round.

Three hours later they were in too deep, but it was a comfortable deep, beer-drunk and a little sloppy. It was easy enough to write off the looks Dan kept throwing him in between pointed jabs – something halfway between a sneer and a come-on, it was almost like a dare – but when he checked his phone in the men’s room, he was greeted by a text that read, “It’s too loud to argue in here, let’s go drink back at my place.”

So they had. Dan poured them both bourbons that they never ended up finishing and then began moving closer and closer on the couch, which wasn’t big to begin with. By the time Dan clapped a hand on his knee and left it there, heavy and imposing, he’d had enough of the game.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Dan,” he muttered. “Is this the fucking Girlfriend Experience?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Dan had said, not quite smiling.

It wasn’t the first time, far from it, but it felt, in some strange way, like the start of something. It turned out, after the fact, that Jonah’d had access to an internal memo on the new healthcare negotiations that Dan wanted to see, but the excuse felt almost flimsy, and he suspected that it had really just been an encounter of convenience. Except that it kept happening, and it kept becoming more and more convenient.

It’s been a year to the day and they’re in vastly different places now: Jonah, back in the West Wing; Dan, lobbying full-time with Amy at his side. And every time they change positions, it changes whatever they are. Jonah knows he’s Dan’s only point of access to the Wing at this point, and that it behooves Dan to keep him around, but Dan’s also a little too eager to pay for his drinks and expense whatever dry-cleaning bills he incurs with mysterious stains to Jonah’s suits. “I’m doing really well,” he points out. “Like, Scrooge McDuck well. Which, I suppose, would make you Huey, Dewey, and Louie.”

“Jesus, what the fuck kind of incestuous Duck Tales were you watching?” Jonah mutters, but doesn’t argue the point.

The current state of affairs is – good, practically. It’s almost _good._ And that’s the part Jonah can’t get his head around, because it’s not supposed to be like this. He’s slept over at least once a week for the past three months, and Dan didn’t look pained when Jonah suggested he might leave a toothbrush there. When they meet up for drinks after work to talk shop and light treason, there’s always a rum-and-coke waiting for him. And it’s always the good shit, too, only top-shelf liquor for both of them now that Dan’s a fucking baller or whatever. It’s _good_. They fight and they fuck but they do it in relative comfort, the verbal abuse feeling more like a sparring match than something Jonah has to prepare for and fend off. If they’re drunk or even just tired, it sometimes feels like a perverse form of affection. The rest of the time, it’s a masochistic tango, a call and response they both know by heart: _fuck you_ , Jonah says, _please_ , Dan replies, except when it’s the other way around. 

There’s only one significant problem, as Jonah sees it, and it’s this: Dan is staunchly in denial about the entire thing. Dan refuses to acknowledge whatever this is, refuses to put words to it even in passing, and Jonah can’t figure out if it’s because he doesn’t feel the same way or because he’s just too fucking emotionally constipated to figure it out. It’s almost as if he hasn’t noticed at all.

So Jonah makes a plan.

He’s not going to mention it, because he knows Dan would flip if he does. He’s not going to come right out and say it, but he thinks he can get away with slowly turning up the heat beneath them. Maybe Dan will finally acknowledge that the water’s been getting warmer and warmer, and maybe he’ll jump out but maybe he’ll think it’s the perfect temperature and say when. Or maybe they’ll both boil to death. Who knows.

 

* * *

 

**III.**

 

He starts by cataloguing the things Dan does without waiting for restitution. Sometimes it feels like everything between them is negotiation and collateral, but every so often, there’s a moment that goes unmentioned, something selfless that doesn’t seem in keeping with their normal dynamic. He used to write them off as minor hiccups, more proof of the five percent of Dan that’s still somewhat human, but now they feel like evidence of a greater conspiracy.

“Shit, are you bleeding?”

“It’s nothing,” Jonah grumbles, but winces as Dan carefully brushes his thumb over the skin around the contusion on his chin. “I told you, I just got rear-ended.”

Dan snorts. “You got rear-ended hard enough to bust your chin open on the steering wheel, and you still think you’re a decent driver –”

“This wasn’t my fault,” Jonah snaps, running a defensive hand through his hair and wishing that Dan would stop staring at him like he’s just won a bet. “This fucking waste of oxygen was texting and plowed into me when I was at a dead stop. I could sue –”

“You _should_ sue.”

“I’m not going to sue.” Jonah touches the cut himself, then winces again. Dan could always shrug it off and leave him to it, which would probably be the easiest of all possibly solutions. But he can also count the times that Dan’s been oddly concerned about him and his well-being – there was the Teddy ordeal, how he’d worn a look of pure fury every time anyone brought up the guy’s name henceforth; the time Jonah’d accidentally slammed his own hand in the car door (Dan laughed for a solid minute and then brought him a bag of frozen peas); the way Dan smugly reminds him to “watch yourself, Lurch” every time they walk through a low doorway, but couples it with a soft touch to his lower back (you hit your head on _one_ colonial farmhouse door on a presidential photo op in Virginia…). Just another one of those weird running things they choose not to acknowledge.

Jonah figures he has two choices: shrug it off and go home and deal with the insurance company right now, or let Dan do whatever this is and risk making it weird. The latter, unfortunately, seems much, much easier.

“Are you feeling okay?” Dan asks. Jonah watches him pulling a box of band-aids out of the bathroom drawer. “Any dizziness? Are you sensitive to light?” Dan peels open one of the packages and gestures for Jonah to sit on the edge of the tub. With a moment’s hesitation, he does, frowning and shaking his head as Dan leans forward to line up the bandage with the edges of the cut.

“I’m feeling fine.” Jonah grits his teeth a little as Dan presses it down. He’s already developing a nice bruise around the edges, he can feel it. “What’s with the fucking nurse act?”

“Any nausea?”

“Only from whatever this whole thing is you’re doing right now.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t have a concussion. I know all the signs–”

“I’m sure you’ve had plenty,” Jonah mutters. “Can’t imagine why anyone’d want to bash your brains in.” He’s not making eye contact, and Jonah feels smaller than usual with Dan standing over the top of him like this. As they both fall quiet, Jonah feels like he wants to do something. Close the gap, lean in for the kiss, make it weirder. But he can imagine the look on both of their faces and the weird-ass shitstorm that would follow if he followed through, so he clears his throat and shoves his hands in his sweatshirt pockets and glances away. Dan leaves the bathroom, flipping the light switch off before Jonah can get to it.

“I still think you probably have a concussion,” Dan says as they make their way to the living room. He sits on the couch, but doesn’t gesture for Jonah to join him. “You can’t go to sleep for the next few hours unless you want to risk becoming more brain-damaged than you already are.”

“Fuck you,” Jonah says. “I’m tired and my neck hurts like a bitch. I’m going home and I’m going to sleep until Monday.”

“You’re probably gonna die if you do,” Dan replies. He opens his laptop and hits a few buttons, barely looking up as Jonah shifts uncomfortably in place, because this level of casual concern coming from Dan is really fucking with him. “Go take a hot shower if your neck really hurts. You want painkillers?”

“Yeah. Probably. You got Vicodin?”

“I have Advil. Go take a shower.” He doesn't even bother to look up from his laptop this time. “Seriously, I’m not fucking around.”

Jonah drags his teeth over his lower lip and then sighs. “Fine,” he says, and walks back to the bathroom without further argument. Dan’s shower is roomy and the water pressure is incredible, and even though they’ve fucked in here at least a dozen times by now, Jonah doesn’t remember ever feeling this vulnerable as he rinses Dan’s expensive shampoo out of his hair. (And that’s the other thing, these constant, tiny reminders that this is more than what it feels like – he stays here more and more lately, and uses Dan’s soap and shampoo, _and it’s always weird when you find yourself smelling like your partner_ , he thinks. He prefers there to be some separation normally, but sometimes goes to work and wonders whether anyone else can actually smell Dan on him. Some perverse part of him hopes they can, because even fun secrets get boring to keep, and an even smaller part of him likes the idea of being marked in a less lascivious way than a scratch or a bruise he can’t properly explain. Soap and cedar and whatever that other thing Dan always smells like, that’s a little more subtle.)

The rest of the night is uneventful, a series of excuses for the lines they cross. Dan tells him not to get used to this kind of treatment, that he just didn’t want Jonah dying on his watch because he can’t afford another fucking scandal on his record, but they order a pizza and kill a six-pack and they catch Owen Pearce stumbling over his words on Chris Hayes, which is good for a solid ten minutes of shit-talking that turns to not talking at all. By the time Jonah decides it’s probably safe to fall asleep without risking death or brain damage (as if it were ever really a threat), it’s actually kind of nice, and he doesn’t have the energy to get up and leave. Technically, he doesn’t have to. Tomorrow is Sunday. The couch, while not exactly comfortable, is exactly where he wants to be.

Dan falls asleep first, right there on the couch, his head tipping onto Jonah’s shoulder in a way that makes him look younger than he is. He’s all freckles and eyelashes in the low light and, well, it is what it is, but it’s also really nice.

 

* * *

 

 

**IV.**

 

It’s gone on long enough by now that Jonah can finally tell when he’s being played. Dan’s so good at this normally, but he’s got a series of tells, and Jonah’s made it his mission to learn them all – from the voice Dan affects when he’s trying to sweet-talk someone into working against their own interests, low and warm like amber scotch, to the way he gets cagey, doesn’t quite commit to details, scratches the back of his head or doesn’t quite look straight ahead.

It’s just – he doesn’t like being lied to. He doesn’t mind Dan taking him on straight to his face. But there’s nothing more insulting than being manipulated by someone who’s not even that good at manipulation.

And this traffic is the fucking worst. “Times like this, I miss the goddamn motorcade,” Dan says, looking up from his phone impatiently. They haven’t moved more than ten feet in five minutes and Jonah’s tapping his fingers against the steering wheel even though he knows how much it annoys Dan.

“You always miss the motorcade,” Jonah says absently. His mind is elsewhere; they’re definitely going to miss their dinner reservation. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh, I was going to wait until we got to the restaurant,” says Dan. “This isn’t really the time –”

“We’ve got nothing but time.”

“–or the place,” Dan adds.

Jonah gestures at the unmoving traffic. “Thanks, Selina. Look, just say whatever it is. We’re gonna miss the rez, anyway.”

Dan sighs, turning his head to look out the window. He looks uncomfortable, and Jonah’s stomach suddenly flips. This couldn’t be – Dan wouldn’t go so far as to make dinner reservations (at a place of his own choosing, naturally; Jonah almost never chooses where they eat after the Hooters debacle) just to talk work. Which is the main thing they talk about when they go out, because it always serves another purpose; they’re always meeting someone else afterward or involved in some kind of scheme or subterfuge.

“Fine,” Dan says. “Okay. You know, I think things have been pretty good lately, you know? I’m in a good place. You’re in a good place.”

“Um,” Jonah says. “Yeah. Yeah, things have been good.”

“ _We’re_ good together,” Dan adds. He shifts in the seat and loosens his tie slightly. The move feels practiced and familiar to Jonah’s eye.

“I mean – yeah.” Jonah can’t argue with that. Dan throws him a look from the passenger seat, a smile that doesn’t reach the eyes with a razor-sharp edge attached, and Jonah suddenly realizes what’s happening. There’s going to be a caveat to this. Dan’s playing him, preparing him for some bad news, and he’s not going to let it happen; he’s hitting the brakes, whiplash be damned. “What the fuck do you want, Dan?”

Dan cocks an eyebrow. Another one of his tells. “What makes you think I want something?”

“You’re doing the _thing_. You always do this when you want something. You’re trying to charm me like one of your fucking old lady campaign donors or representatives or whatever. You fiddle with your tie, give them that smoky-eyed ladies’ man look, and all of a sudden they’re telling you things they shouldn’t and you have, I don’t know, _dirt_ on them. It’s not gonna play here, asshole.”

“You’re fucking paranoid.” Dan rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m right. Just be genuine. Just be fucking sincere if there’s something you need. Why do you have such a problem with that?”

Dan falls silent, and suddenly traffic starts moving again. Jonah hits the gas and they’ve moved a couple dozen yards, still bumper-to-bumper but better than before, before Dan speaks up again. “I guess – I don’t actually know how to be… sincere?”

“Jesus, Dan, that’s literally the most sociopathic thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“No, I mean, it’s just that I’m _good_ at the charming part. If I’m being honest, I mean. Why are you so against it? Everyone else is fine with it. I’m doing pretty fucking well for myself, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Because it’s not _charm_ , it’s manipulation,” Jonah says, frustrated. “You can’t fucking charm me, I’ve seen too much. You used to call me ‘Jonad’ multiple times a day and I once saw you threaten to disembowel an eighty-year-old White House tour guest who you thought was taking a picture in a no-photography zone.”

“She said she didn’t know how her camera worked, but she fucking knew.”

“I’m just saying. The time for charm is _long_ past. You’re gonna have to give sincerity a try.”

“Watch it, Jonad,” Dan mutters. Jonah rolls his eyes as they pull off onto K Street. They barely make their 9PM seating, but Dan doesn’t flash a single fake smile or use that smarmy, condescending voice again all night, and the meal is good.

They never talk about whatever it was they were going to talk about in the first place; it’s all calm, avoidant sentences about work and budget negotiations and shit-talking their coworkers. Jonah thinks that maybe it’s for the best.

 

* * *

 

 

**V.**

It’s a Friday night and they’ve just done a third round of shots. Jonah's contemplating a fourth and feeling braver than usual. Someone's singing The Cure on karaoke and butchering most of the notes. He swings an arm around Dan's shoulder and pulls him closer.

“Real subtle,” Dan mutters, but he doesn’t move to pull away, and Jonah doesn’t either.

 

It’s a Saturday and they're in another bar and they're shooting pool. He leans over Dan from behind and lays a hand over his forearm, the other on the cue. “Your aim is sloppy as shit,” he mutters in Dan's ear. “You need to line it up like this ...”

He feels like this shouldn't be okay with Dan. Not with his thing about PDA, not with the way he tightened up and clenched his jaw whenever Jonah used to so much as graze his arm in public. But this Dan is relaxed, warm and liquid in the dim light and dull roar of a DuPont dive bar. And he looks good, casual in the black knitted pullover that Jonah pretends he doesn't like. It’s confusing as hell and he’d be a liar if he told himself he wasn’t enjoying it.

Dan cocks his head to the side, glancing back at Jonah with a sly sideways look. “There's nothing wrong with my aim, asshole,” he says casually, but pointedly. A challenge. Like everything else these days. Then he knocks a ball into the corner pocket. Smirks. “You were saying?”

 

Sunday morning. Early. They technically haven’t slept yet. Jonah’s knees are aching and he’s sweating too much as Dan cards a hand through his hair, seated on the bed with legs lazily spread.

“When someone like me actually wants you around, this is what it feels like.”

The slap lands hard across his cheek. There’s actual force behind it and it stings like hell. He’s sure that if he looked in the mirror he’d see the reddening imprint of Dan’s hand left behind. He starts to thank him, but it turns into a strangled non-sound halfway through as the pleasure hits him.

“You wanted this,” Dan says. “You wanted to play.”

Another slap. Another sting of pain. Another rush of pleasure.

“You wanted to be part of this.”

He did. He does. He wants it more than anything. This time, he turns his head to meet Dan’s palm first.

 

It's a Monday. Jonah’s leaning on the hood of his car when Dan gets home. It’s long after dark and cold as fuck out but he’s used to it. Those long New Hampshire winters prepared him for nights like this. He sees Dan pull up and uncrosses his arms, watching him get out of the car.

“You okay?”

Dan winces. Shrugs. He makes a vague hand motion as if to wave off the question like a mosquito. “Rough day.”

“I heard,” Jonah says, pushing off the car hood to stand up straight and follow Dan to the door. “I figured you could use – whatever this is, I don’t know.”

“Don’t get passive-aggressive with me, asshole. I’ve had to deal with Sidney and Amy both yelling in my face all day and now this thing with the – this fucking bill is going to ruin me –” He stops short as he slides his key into the lock, heaves a sigh. “I need a drink.”

Jonah exhales slowly, watching his and Dan’s breath comingle in the below-freezing air. “Gonna take the edge off with a decades-long slide into alcoholism? Should we invite Ben Cafferty?”

“He’s a better drinking buddy than you.” The door swings open and Dan makes a move as to walk through, but Jonah slides into the doorway first, turning sideways to lean against the doorjamb. He slides his cold fingers over Dan’s jawline and neck, then kisses him softly on the lips, testing the tilt, the fit, the angles, the _waters_. This shouldn’t be okay – they don’t do this outside, in public, anywhere they can be caught or seen or, god forbid, photographed.

But Dan returns the kiss – hesitantly at first, then more insistently, taking control like he always does and gripping Jonah’s hands in his own until Jonah, confused, pulls away.

“What?” Dan frowns. He lets go of Jonah’s hands to fiddle with the buttons on his black coat.

“That was pretty fucking brazen, for a guy who’s got as many enemies in this town as you do,” Jonah starts, half-contentious and still in his head. “Were you – we’re not even inside –”

“I don’t know what you’re so confused about, you started it.” Dan pushes his way past Jonah and through the door, and Jonah spins, shutting it behind them and closing them into the house. “Are you trying to make a point or something?”

“I – no.” _Yes_. He is, and it’s infuriating that Dan already knows. “I just didn’t expect you to go for that. That’s all.”

Dan eyes him knowingly. “Right. Okay. Are we done?”

“Yeah. Whatever. It’s just –” Jonah waves a hand through the air, mirroring Dan’s motion from a moment before. “It’s nothing.” Because asking for an explanation -- he knows how easy it is to fuck up a good thing by saying the wrong thing, he’s not a fucking moron, he wasn’t born yesterday.

He’s going to push this until it snaps, he’s sure, but this isn’t the night to start.

 

There’s a line of meticulously-plotted marks barely visible above his collar and disappearing into the dip between his collarbones. Each had a monologue that accompanied it: the one about how bad he is at lying. The one about his messy handwriting. The one where Dan had sucked a bruise into his throat while whispering what sounded like, but couldn’t be, a rehearsed series of lines about wanting to fuck him on the White House lawn while the entire press corps watched, and then stopped to whisper, "Is this okay?" He'd rolled his eyes and egged him on - "I'm good, I'm great," but now he's regretting the placement.

He winces as he looks at himself in the mirror while running the shower. His shirt collar will hide most of them, but not all. Dan would have done that on purpose. Dick.

 

As he drives home that night, he can’t decide on a radio station or album to fill the silence. He flips off the volume and drums his fingers against the steering wheel restlessly.

It’s probably nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

**VI.**

 

Amy Brookheimer is getting married.

When Dan tells Jonah, they both laugh for what feels like a week. Because Amy is the last person who they ever pictured actually getting married, for a myriad number of reasons. “I guess she realized she’s going to have to actually do the whole fucking thing if she wants to run for office,” Jonah shrugs, and they both agree that it makes sense – she’ll need a husband, a whole narrative of her own, if she’s going to do this. Or maybe, somehow, she just developed feelings for that pencil-necked geek she’s been dating for the past five years.

It doesn’t matter. The point is, Amy is getting married, and Jonah doesn’t care if he has to parachute out of a crop-duster, he’s getting into that wedding, but going as Dan’s plus-one is a lot easier and they both think it’ll be fun. The seven months go by and the wedding day arrives and they put on their nice suits and show up together, but not quite together.

Amy looks less than enthused to see Jonah, but he laughs it off. Wedding day nerves, nothing out of the ordinary. Ed gives them both a pained smile. It’s a short ceremony, not particularly special, but Amy looks stunning in ivory and the photos seem to come out nice. It’s not until the reception that Jonah notices how fully on-edge Dan seems to be.

“You okay?” he asks, sliding into a seat beside him with a slice of cake on a plate. “You look tense.”

Dan shrugs, taking the cake without fully looking at it. He doesn’t take a bite. He’s got a vodka-soda in one hand and he’s staring daggers into Amy, who is dancing with Ed to a Billy Joel song. “She’s Always a Woman.” Weirdly appropriate. “I’m fine. Why would I be tense?”

“Dude, are you even fucking breathing?”

Dan exhales, because _obviously_ he wasn’t. “God,” mutters Jonah. “You’ve got to let it go. You think she was gonna hold out for you?”

With a look that lets Jonah know he’s crossed a line, Dan shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nah. I do. You and Amy, perfect little brood of future First Children, putting the kids through Sidwell Friends and Princeton on a think-tank salary to make up for the money she’d practically be losing serving in the House,” Jonah says knowingly, sipping his own drink. “Or was it the Senate?”

“How did you –”

“Your Dropbox passwords are weak as fuck. It was in the folder ‘5 Year Plan Revision 2012.’”

“Does it matter?” Dan says. “It was a possibility. Anything is a possibility at any time.”

“Except that,” says Jonah, pointing to Amy, who executes an awkward twirl on the dance floor, her empty hand clenched as if she’s holding a phantom cell phone.

“Let it go,” Dan hisses. “Jesus fucking Christ. I am not going to get thrown out of this wedding for stabbing you with a steak knife. It would be too much of a cliché.”

“Fine.” The song changes to something upbeat, and Jonah looks around the room as more people start to join the dance floor. More women than men, which was always a good thing, because nobody was the center of more positive attention than a man dancing well at a wedding. “I’m gonna go dance. Lotta ladies out there in need of partners, and you know how I crush it at weddings.”

Dan shrugs, looking down at his phone. He doesn’t answer, and Jonah rolls his eyes before getting up and sidling over to a young woman in blue, dancing alone to some Motown song he doesn’t know the name of. A few songs later, a few partners later, he glances back over to the side of the room to see Dan still sulking and staring at his phone, attracting sideways glances from the people around him.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters under his breath. The woman dancing near him gives him a nasty look and starts to move away. “I didn’t mean you,” he adds hastily, but she’s practically powerwalking backwards through the crowd, so he sighs and strides across the room to where Dan is sitting, swiping his phone from his hand before he can look up.

“The fuck –”

“Get up and be a human being,” Jonah mutters, pocketing Dan’s phone. “Or come with me to the bathroom and we’ll have this out. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Dan says. He stabs the last bite of cake with his fork and pops it into his mouth.

Jonah shakes his head. “People are staring at you. You look like you’re in a fucking rom-com gone bad. Come on.”

He starts to walk away, and with Dan’s phone in his pocket, he knows Dan will have no choice but to follow him. So he leads the way to the men’s room, Dan stalking behind him, throwing bitter glances at anyone looking at the two of them.

“What the fuck is up with you?” Jonah says as the door shuts behind them. “Are you really this petty? Jesus, Dan, you look like you’re ten minutes away from pulling an Elliot Rodger –”

“Not funny.”

“Neither is the way you’re acting. Have you just been lurking around the office for the past seven months making that serial killer face every time you see her engagement ring?”

Dan shakes his head. “It _literally_ has nothing to do with Amy.”

“Bullshit. You’re lying. Your eyebrows go nuts when you’re lying.” Jonah slides his hands into his pockets as he contemplates Dan, looking furious and shorter than usual. “You don’t have to tell me what’s up, but give me some credit. You get weird and jealous about her and you _literally_ always have. Get over it. You know she doesn’t work like that. This whole wedding is all for show, you know she’s not actually in love with that guy.”

The thing is, it’s absolutely true, and he can tell Dan knows it’s true. Dan may not have too many weaknesses, but if his anxiety and perfectionism are number one, his nebulous, unresolved feelings – whatever they may be, because as far as Jonah knows, they change on the regular – for Amy are definitely number two. And he’s always thought he should probably be jealous of Amy himself, because she brings out _something_ in Dan that he doesn’t. A competitive spark, a productiveness that makes them both unstoppable once they harness it for good. It’s why Purcell loves them both, why they’ve both managed to break into the upper echelon of lobbyists with actual negotiating power in only a couple of years working together. They make each other better because, in some small way, they seem to crave each other’s attention while rejecting each other’s approval.

But he also knows he’s telling the truth. _Amy doesn’t work like that_. She’d never allow Dan to rely on her in the way that he does Jonah, a way Dan has obviously never wanted to rely on anyone, and that coolness is exactly what Jonah admires about her. He wishes he could channel it, turn off his id and show a little more restraint a little more often, but he’s not like her. Jonah borders on hedonism and Amy borders on asceticism and Dan is somewhere in between. Dan compartmentalizes and rationalizes his feelings until they’re almost nonexistent, until Jonah calls him on the act and forces him to own up to whatever he’s feeling. He gives Dan something else, something he needs. He lets Dan be _tired_ and take power naps on his shoulder, and keeps him emotionally even-keeled, and there’s equal amounts of validation; he feels needed and valued and Dan feels safe and comfortable and they don’t tell anyone and it works for them.

That’s the thing, he realizes, standing in the men’s room with Dan’s phone in his pocket and watching Dan shift uncomfortably, fingers twitching like he _needs_ to be checking his email or else he’ll die. That’s what’s making Dan so fucking uncomfortable. Not only does Amy not particularly want or need Dan for anything outside the purview of their professional lives – as all-consuming as they may be – accepting that means accepting the alternative. It means accepting that this is something halfway to real.

“Whatever,” Jonah says. He grudgingly hands Dan’s phone back to him. “Let’s go get trashed. You can embarrass yourself in some other way tonight.”

 

* * *

 

 

**VII.**

 

And it just keeps going. He tallies them up, the times that they do things for each other without an expectation hanging off the end. He can tell that Dan is starting to skid into another rough patch, with regard to his anxiety, so he doesn’t push it, just carefully reminds him not to exert himself, puts a reminder on his phone to take his pills because he knows Dan will never remind himself. He’s sure it goes ignored most of the time, but that’s par for the course.

He’s not sure exactly why he keeps doing it, except that he just _knows_ Dan by this point. Dan prefers not to get close to people and open up to them because doing so opens them up to knowing him, in ways he doesn’t want them to know him and ways he can’t control. But Jonah’s long past that point, and he’s seen Dan at his worst and least graceful. He’s caused him to be at his worst at times, which he still has trouble feeling guilty about – sometimes the motherfucker deserves it, needs to be knocked down a peg, and Jonah feels like he may not actually be the power player he’s always pretended to be, but he can still give as good as he gets when it comes to picking at Dan Egan’s scabs. He sees that Dan keeps trying to hold him at arm’s length, but he doesn’t respect it, and that’s just what it is. It’s just what they are.

The point is: Dan’s going through a bad time. Normally, Jonah’s noticed, he tends to disassociate the bad times from his own self-perception; treats them like something that happened to someone else. It can’t be healthy, he thinks. The diagnosis says generalized anxiety comorbid with panic disorder, but it seems to translate into a tricking spring of worry intercut with irregular, geyser-like eruptions of intense panic attacks. And it’s hell to be around, but he’s sure it’s worse to live with.

So it’s summer. So it’s oppressively hot and humid, like being inside a greenhouse, and that only seems to have served to make things worse. It’s a Saturday night and they’re fighting like they haven’t fought in a long time, with the rhetorical equivalent of throwing knives instead of fencing foils, and suddenly Dan is hyperventilating, clutching at his chest with wide eyes.

“Fuck,” Jonah says, his stomach dropping. “Are you having one of your – panic attack things?”

Dan doesn’t answer. He’s looking wildly around the room, like a deer trapped in the headlights surrounded by a SWAT team. And Jonah’s feeling like he’s never really seen him like this before, and suddenly, without really knowing why, he reaches out and wraps his arms around Dan and guides him down onto the couch. He arranges them so that they’re almost spooning, but not quite, Dan resting half on top of him and half on the body of the couch itself, and as Jonah squeezes him a little tighter, Dan twists his head to look into his eyes.

“What the fuck.”

“Just let me do this,” Jonah says, plain and calm. “I know you were never hugged as a child, which probably explains a lot about why you are the way you are, but I read –”

“You were hugged too fucking much, Norman Bates,” Dan snaps. He wriggles a little, testing his range of motion. “And you’re crushing my ribcage, asshole.”

“Oh,” Jonah says quietly, and readjusts his arms. “Is that better?”

“ – yeah.” Dan seems at a loss for words, and shuts his eyes instead. Jonah doesn’t. He looks out across the living room, noticing their reflection in the black reflective screen of the TV. He suddenly realizes he’s never been this _aware_ of Dan, who’s in shorts and a t-shirt due to the heat, and even though they’ve been together like this for – shit, it’s coming up on three years now – this might be as exposed as either of them have ever been. The air conditioning kicks back on and the low hum amplifies the screaming silence between them as Jonah breathes in seven seconds of half-day-old aftershave and white cotton and whatever that third thing is that normally makes him want Dan to pin him to the wall and take a bite out of him. Probably pheromones or something. Probably some truth to the idea that you can’t choose who attracts you, because he never would have chosen this.

After a few minutes, which manage to feel like an eternity, Jonah loosens his grip a little. He’s tracing patterns on Dan’s bicep with his thumb, figure eights and plus signs. It probably feels like Morse code for “get me the fuck out of here,” but he doesn’t actually mind it. Not really. This is almost nice. It’s like a satirical play on something conventional. The only times Dan lets Jonah hold him is when things are really bad like this. Sometimes it’s in the kitchen, leaning into each other for support after some kind of small-yet-crushing defeat, and sometimes it’s in bed, when the measure of power and control Dan demands becomes too obviously exhausting to hold up the façade in the aftermath.

It’s _intimate_. It’s much too intimate to ever possibly become their new normal. If Jonah has to admit it to himself, he doesn’t always mind being kept at arm’s length, because it means he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his mistakes and the lines he crosses. The longer Dan continues to pretend he doesn’t have feelings, the longer Jonah can pretend that he doesn’t have to cater to them. He can be aggressive, he can be a shit, and as long as there are no rules, there are also no consequences.

But then Dan takes a deep breath and lets out a low sigh, and Jonah feels something jerk inside of him, and fuck, he hates this. These moments always have a way of knocking something loose in him, something he’s learned from Dan to keep locked away upstairs. Dan can pretend that he doesn’t have feelings, but Jonah has them, he always has, and he’s not the ice man. He’s okay with it, because Dan’s method of handling these things is obviously _not healthy_ , and they wouldn’t be wrapped up in each other on the couch like this if it were. Dan takes a deep breath and lets out a low sigh, and all of a sudden Jonah’s terrified that he’ll say something he can’t take back.

“You okay?” he says instead, and Dan nods, almost imperceptibly.

 

* * *

 

 

**VIII.**

 

So now they’re almost three years into this and it’s probably too late to go back. Jonah’s given notice at his apartment and moved into Dan’s – it happened bit by bit, and then all at once; he was practically living there already, and Dan’s place is much closer to his new job, anyway, just a single metro stop. And the weird thing is that living together is – it’s not bad, actually. They’ve established a morning routine, stepping around each other to get to the coffeemaker and the phone chargers, straightening ties and holding each other’s coffee in the hectic moments, and occasionally, but less and less frequently, snapping at each other over little things that mean nothing. They know each other’s preferred takeout orders and Jonah remembers where Dan keeps his Xanax and Klonopin just in case he has a bad spiral, and Dan still acts like he doesn’t have feelings but –

_Jonah wakes with a start to a hand on his shoulder. In the dark of the bedroom he can just make out Dan, looking at him, bewildered and peculiar._

_“You’re still—” Dan starts to say something, then trails off. “Nothing. Sorry.”_

_“Fuck, it’s like 3 a.m., Dan.”_

_“Weird dream. It’s nothing.”_

“I need the new numbers on Hamlin’s higher-ed bill,” Dan snaps into his phone, his tie undone around his neck. Jonah, leaning on the counter, presses a coffee cup into his outstretched hand and watches him breeze past, wondering if he has any memory of that moment the night before. He certainly hasn’t acknowledged it, and Jonah isn’t going to press the issue. But he can’t stop thinking about it, either.

“Oh, shit, I almost forgot,” Dan says as he hangs up. “I have an event tonight, some bullshit fundraiser for FutureWorld. If you want to come along, I was thinking we could grab a bite after, talk shit about the whole thing.”

“Yeah?” Jonah takes a sip of his own coffee. It’s too hot, burns his tongue, but he swallows anyway. “Two hours at a fundraiser for a neocon super-PAC sounds all right. What’s the hookers-and-blow situation look like?”

“FutureWorld is all liberals, you’re thinking of Restore Tomorrow,” says Dan. He sets his coffee on the counter to quickly knot his tie. “No hookers, no blow, but good networking for sure.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jonah says. “I’ll go to your thing.”

 

The fundraiser is - it's whatever. But Dan is in his element, suit and tie and veneers agleam, shaking hands and speaking in low voices about deals Jonah senses are already only half made. He feels useless, decorative, like a third tit. But it's nice to just watch Dan work, three years after they parted ways professionally for the last time. It's true that he's transparent; Jonah can read every switch between charm and sincerity like stage directions. It's not without appeal, though, especially every time Dan turns back to him and hisses “that pig fuck” or “we're gonna gut him like a trout.”

“Careful, I don't think the entire room heard you that time,” Jonah mutters as Dan hands him a canapé from a passing waiter’s tray.

Dan laughs, undeterred. “I think we'll be okay,” he says. He’s chewing on the straw in his vodka-soda and god, when did that gesture become so fucking attractive? Jonah stuffs his mouth full of crab cake as Dan turns back to the crowd, scanning their faces for his next victim. Looking for the blood in the water.

But it's another shark, not chum, who greets them next; Sidney Purcell himself, flanked by two younger men, proto-Dans in suits almost, but not quite, as nice. “Daniel,” he says with a piranha-like smile before turning to Jonah. “And you’re –”

“Oh, this is my roommate, Jonah Ryan,” Dan says smoothly as Jonah offers a handshake. “Jonah, this is Sidney Purcell –”

“Yeah, it’s a pleasure,” Jonah says. Purcell’s gripe is viselike and red-hot; he hopes he’d managed to wipe all the evidence of the last moment's crab cake off his hand, because this seems like the type of guy who’d notice. “I’m, ah, I’m a consultant? I work for Kent over at Davison-Klein.”

“Right. The infamous Jonah.” Purcell extricates his hand from the handshake and smiles again, this time without teeth. “Dan, I’ve gotta say, I’m a little surprised. Are we not paying you enough?”

“Uh?” Dan nearly chokes, and Jonah tenses, waiting for the insult, already sizing up Purcell for a weak point to extrapolate on when he volleys back. Bald spot? Probably too easy.

“A guy on your level, living with a roommate? No, no, I’m just kidding!” Purcell says with an explosive fake laugh, before adding, “Or am I?”

This time Dan actually does choke on his drink, and in between his hacking coughs, Jonah improvises. “Oh, no, Dan and I are old friends,” he says. “I, uh, my apartment was - condemned. The whole building. Asbestos. It just happened recently. So I'm just staying with him until I figure out what I'm doing...”

“Asbestos,” repeats Purcell, incredulous.

“Yeah,” says Jonah. “It was a whole - a whole thing.”

“Ah. Right.” Purcell turns back to Dan. “Well, give me some good news –”

“I can give you Kate Armindale,” Dan says triumphantly. “She’s gonna stall talks on the for-profit college bill, and I’m this close to getting you Furlong and Cavaricci, too.”

“Attaboy,” Purcell says. “This is why you get paid the big bucks.” With another skeptical look at Jonah, he pivots and marches off, the two silent men at his side trailing behind him.

Jonah turns to Dan, frowning. “Your roommate?”

“Yep,” Dan says, in a very final tone communicating the lack of margin for argumentation. “Sorry I choked there, Sidney – caught me off-guard.”

“Yeah, apparently,” Jonah mutters. “I’m getting another drink.”

 

At the open bar, Jonah finds himself face-to-face with Purcell's two henchmen, and nods a polite hello.

“Jonah, right?” the one in the green bow tie says uninvited. “Dan's, ah, ‘roommate.’” Air quotes around a heavy highball glass.

Jonah sighs, drawing himself up to his full height. “I know it sounds like a whole thing, but it's really just –”

“No, no, I get it,” says the other, who has on these tortoiseshell horn-rims that Jonah kind of wishes he could pull off. “Dan’s got a reputation, you don’t want to be publicly linked to him, we get it.”

This time it’s Jonah’s turn to choke on his drink. “ _Dan’s_ got a reputation?” he splutters. After a full thirty seconds of coughing, he wipes his nose with his cocktail napkin and adds, “I know he’s got a little bit of a Patrick Bateman thing going on, but I wouldn’t say –”

“Please. Guy like that, sleeps his way to the top and loses it all just to start over in the private sector? He knows his best days are behind him,” laughs Green Bow-Tie. “What do you do at Davison-Klein, again?”

“Digital media consulting,” Jonah says distractedly, crumpling the napkin. He tosses it in the direction of a trash can but doesn't pick it up when it falls to the floor. “Uh, if you'll excuse me - good to meet you both.”

“Give our regards to Danny Boy,” laughs Horn-Rims, and Jonah nods, does anything but make eye contact, and makes a beeline back to where Dan stands at the center of another group.

It’s so stupid, and so selfish, that he has almost everything he’s ever really wanted or worked for – a job he actually likes and is halfway decent at, in a city that’s tried so hard to chew him up and spit him out, and money, and a name (for better or for worse), and he lives with a man who makes him feel _alive_ (again, for better or for worse) – he has all this, and he still wants more. Still wants the title. Still wants to fucking know, because he hates walking into a room like this (and it happens more and more nowadays) and hearing people talk and knowing what they’re saying.

So he walks over to where Dan is standing, and throws caution to the wind and swings an arm around his waist, digging fingers into his hip, ignoring the reactions of the others. So what if people talk – let them.

(It ends exactly the way he expects it to – Dan barely reacts, at least not in the way Jonah thinks that he should, but they skip their dinner plans and don’t even make it to the bedroom before Dan’s got him gagged with his own fucking tie. He shouldn’t feel like it should come to this, pawing at Dan in public to get him riled up and aggressive, but Dan looks him straight in the eye as he fucks him, and it’s so good, and it’s so fucking predictable that Jonah wonders if it’s all one long, stupidly impractical joke.)

 

* * *

 

 

**IX.**

 

Nashua is nicer at Christmas than it really has any right to be. It’s not that Jonah doesn’t have plenty of respect for the Granite State – quite the opposite, actually – but he thinks he didn’t really appreciate his hometown properly growing up. Now, though, he loves coming home. He doesn’t do it enough, but it’s good every time.

It’s weird, though, because this time, Dan is with him. They didn’t plan it, exactly. But Dan doesn’t do the holidays with his family. For all the time Jonah’s known him, Dan’s been a send-a-card and make-a-phone-call guy, working straight through New Year’s Eve and offering placid excuses. But they both got a plush, extended, three-day vacation this year and before Jonah really knew what he was doing, he’d blurted out, “You wanna come up to my mom’s place with me?”

Dan had looked at him sideways, like it was a trick. “Your whole family’s gonna be there?”

“Yeah. All of ‘em. Cousins, aunts… uncles.” He felt desperate and sweaty, having to throw out the nepotism card in order to get the asshole he lived with to spend the holidays with his family, but it felt fair.

For his part, Dan just shrugged. “Cool. A little networking opportunity over the holidays. Be nice to get out of D.C., I guess.”

So they took off early in the morning, made the seven-hour drive in five and a half even despite holiday traffic through creative use of carpool lanes and flat-out speeding on I-95. And now they’re here, in the city where Jonah grew up, and it’s nice, but it’s also weird.

His mom greets them with hugs at the door, her little white dog yapping excitedly at their feet. He’d told her he was bringing a friend, but hadn’t mentioned specifics, and he sees her eyes widen as she takes in Dan, who’s wearing the red flannel shirt Jonah likes under his black coat and honestly looks stupidly fucking handsome in the bright New England afternoon sunshine. “You must be J.J.’s friend,” she says, leaning only slightly on the word ‘friend.’ It makes him cringe anyway.

“Yeah. Friends, Mom,” he says impatiently as they cross the threshold and set down their bags. “I have those, you know.”

“I never implied that you didn’t, sweetie,” she says as she shuts the door. The house is warm and smells like cookies – of _course_ it smells like cookies. He’s not sure what the root of Dan’s weird holiday-related neuroses is, but at least his mom seems dedicated to showing him what he’s been missing. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten yet?”

“I’m actually starving,” Jonah nods. “Can we go put our stuff down first, though?”

“Of course,” she says. “And – I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” she gestures to Dan -

“Dan. Dan Egan,” he says, lunging forward into a handshake. He’s putting on the charmer act, all eyelashes and teeth with her, and Jonah frowns a little but shakes it off as Dan smiles wider. “You have a really beautiful home, by the way.”

His mom laughs. “Oh, thank you, sweetheart,” she says as she breaks off the handshake. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a little cramped, though. We’ve got family coming in from out of town and out of state, and some of them are staying at hotels, but the bulk are going to be with us.”

“Uncle Jeff’s not staying in the guest room, is he?” Jonah pipes up. “I mean, I can stay in my room, but –”

His mom shakes her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, J.J. When you said you were bringing a ‘friend,’ I just assumed –”

“That we were going to both sleep in my twin-sized bed?” Jonah sighs. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t mind moving to a hotel,” Dan says dryly as the dog, Noodles or Jingles or whatever his name is, Jonah never really remembers, continues to sniff at their bags. “It’s honestly not a problem.”

“It’s fine, Dan, we’ll work it out,” says Jonah. “There’s gotta be another mattress. Or a couch. I’m putting my stuff in my room, though.” Off his pointed look, Dan follows him through the house, but stops short when they get to the living room.

“Holy. Shit.”

“Don’t say a fucking word.”

Dan’s eyes are wide with glee and his mouth drops open as he stares at the portrait on the wall. “I cannot believe this. This is – this is prime blackmail material –”

“Blackmail for what, motherfucker? We’ve been sleeping together for three years and there’s no way you can get me fired. Trust me, I’ve checked.”

“Old habits –” Dan sounds distracted as he pulls out his phone and snaps a photo. “Holy shit. I’m sending this to Amy.”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Jonah hisses. “She just started taking me seriously –”

“Bad news, J.J., she’s never gonna take you seriously,” Dan snorts as he taps at his phone. Jonah makes a halfhearted swipe for it, but Dan’s quicker. “Holy shit. This is – I can’t believe this. Do you still have that sweater?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jonah mutters. Dan’s still chuckling behind him as they make their way to his bedroom, which hasn’t really changed since he left for college. Same posters on the walls (Phish and Beastie Boys, from before he’d really gotten into metal), same pictures in frames on the dresser. Trophies stacked in a case on the wall, which Dan hovers over as Jonah ignores him and drops his bag on his bed.

“I didn’t know you did forensics,” Dan says with interest that sounds real. “Me too. Policy debate.”

“Humorous interpretation,” Jonah nods. “It looked good for colleges. I was good at it.”

“I guess,” Dan snorts. “And not so much at basketball, apparently. Nice participation trophies, you fucking _child_.”

“I actually quit basketball junior year,” Jonah says, and, ugh, Dan doesn’t have to rub in the fact that he’s got a few years on him. He shakes his head as he sits on the bed, glancing down at his phone. “I sucked at it. I made the team because, y’know, but I hated it and the coach kept making fun of me and telling me to go do my ‘theater thing.’ And I had to keep missing weekend practices to go to tournaments, so after a while it was just, like, why not commit to this one thing instead of doing something else I hated.”

“Like you couldn’t balance two extracurriculars?” Dan laughs. “I did debate and lacrosse my whole four years and was on student council with a 4.0 –”

“Okay, your high school dick was bigger than mine. You’re like forty, who gives a shit?” Jonah sighs. “Does it matter?”

Dan shrugs, in a noncommittal way insinuating that he in no way considers the argument won. He sits down next to Jonah on the bed, not touching but close enough. Jonah tries not to think about how this is the bed where he lost his virginity as a clammy seventeen-year-old (to a girl who later turned out to be a lesbian, adding insult to noneventful injury), but Dan’s knee is really close to his and it’s weird how a change of scenery can make things feel off-balance. “I was serious, by the way,” Dan says. “I don’t mind going to a hotel. It’d probably be more comfortable and not, you know, smell like fucking gingerbread.”

“Dan, it’s Christmas Eve. You literally aren’t gonna find an empty manger, let alone a decent hotel room,” Jonah says. “And do you have a problem with gingerbread?”

“It’s just weird. I’m not used to – all this.” He lowers his voice. “And it’s just – your mom being – _around_ , and shit. If she comes bursting in—”

“She’s not nosy. If you need to worry about anyone, it’s my stepdad,” Jonah says. “Who is a fucking dick, but you’ll find that out soon enough.”

Dan snorts. “Oh my God, of course you have weird daddy issues.”

“Don’t call them that,” Jonah snaps. “Look, I know you have some kind of weird thing with your own parents, but that has nothing to do with me. Don’t project your shit on me.”

“I’m not projecting anything,” Dan says quietly, but he drops the subject, and they walk back into the living room to greet the rest of the extended family.

 

Christmas Eve dinner is nice, uneventful. Dan talks work with Uncle Jeff the entire time and Jonah brags about his new gig to his cousins, who seem less and less impressed with his stories every year and only seem to want to talk about their kids. Like he really cares about the rich inner lives of the kids eating at the table in the living room. They love him, though, climb all over him like a jungle gym after dinner and he’s really not half bad with them, and Dan watches with a faint look of disgust before turning back to Jeff with an “Anyway, so you know the Bartlets – I worked for the campaign back in ’02, actually, it was one of my first jobs out of college…”

It’s only Mark, his stepdad, who throws a spanner in the works. _Third_ stepdad, that’s the thing. His mom’s fourth husband, total. That’s the thing that’s always come between him and his mom – it’s not that he doesn’t love her, but she can be such a fucking doormat, and all of her marriages after his dad left were terrible failures, except for number two, Brian, who was actually kind of cool. He and Brian got along but that one ended halfway through high school and was swiftly replaced by Mark, who has hung on since, a fucking balding lunk with stupid round glasses who never even bothered to pretend to like him.

It’s Mark who pours himself another drink and says to Jonah, “So, c’mon, quit jerking us around. When are you going to bring a girl home?” as they’re all seated in the living room after the kids have gone to bed, Jonah on the couch next to Dan and Uncle Jeff.

Jonah opens his mouth, but doesn’t have words. “I – it’s not – I’m just busy,” he stutters. “I work hard and I play hard. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for, like, dating.” It’s a half truth. It’s almost a whole truth.

“Bullshit,” Mark scoffs. “I’m looking at Dan, I can see that this guy makes time. This guy fucks like crazy, right?”

“Mark, _language_ ,” admonishes his mom, but Mark laughs it off, looking expectantly in Dan’s direction, waiting for an answer.

Dan shrugs. “I do all right,” he says carefully, choosing his words while making direct eye contact with Mark. Jonah can tell he’s not quite comfortable, but admits that Dan does an admirable job of not showing his hand in these situations. “I know we all feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. Speaking of which, I’m really tired –”

“Me too,” Jonah says, quickly. Too quickly. It looks suspicious but he’s tired of Mark looking at him like he’s a fucking failure for not having a wife and kids by now. Because if Mark’s so goddamn dense that he can’t see what’s so obvious in front of him, if he’s so committed to the notion that his stepson is straight and headed for fatherhood and a white picket fence in earnest, he probably _deserves_ some pushback for that. And he’s getting that itch again, like he wants to push the envelope and see how far he can take it before Dan pushes back as well. “You want to turn in, buddy?”

Dan shoots him a look, one that says _Don’t press your luck,_ but Jonah smirks back, and they make their way to his bedroom in unison, Jonah glancing back at his mom and Mark, trying to gauge their reactions but not quite knowing how to interpret what he sees.

 

There’s nowhere near enough room in the house for all of them, of course, so Dan ends up on the trundle bed next to Jonah’s, and it’s only the thinning veneer of stranger-ready charm that keeps him from expressing how Jonah can tell he actually feels about it, which is not great. Jonah wakes up early the following morning. He feels like he might be the first person awake, which is more than unusual, for him. Dan’s still sound asleep, breathing softly in the early morning darkness.

He rarely gets to see Dan like this, usually takes even just a few seconds longer to wake up, and it’s strange. Dan looks almost vulnerable, sprawled on his back with one arm folded behind his head, and even against Jonah’s best efforts, he finds himself thinking it’s kind of sweet. Seconds later, though, Dan jerks awake and glances up, squinting at Jonah groggily.

“Were you watching me sleep?”

“No.” _Kind of._

“You creepy motherfucker.”

“It’s like, four a.m.,” Jonah says. “It’s Christmas. Go back to sleep.”

“Can’t. Fucking circadian rhythms,” Dan mutters. He rubs his eyes and the bridge of his nose, then yawns and sits up. “Yeah. No. I’m up now.”

“Fuck. Me too.” He hates that he knows exactly what Dan means; their bodies have adjusted to their D.C. schedules, and that means they don’t sleep even when they’re afforded the chance. Jonah shrugs, then glances at the little space around him in the bed. “We have time to, y’know –”

Dan exhales softly, then slides off the trundle bed and crawls on top of Jonah in his own, slightly larger bed. It’s all morning breath and cramped quarters, tangled limbs and pajama pants, and Dan is uncharacteristically quiet, pressing hot kisses to Jonah’s neck as their hips rut together gracelessly. They’ve got their fingers laced together, Dan pressing both their hands down hard into the mattress, and Jonah tries not to whisper Dan’s name when he comes but he swears it slips out anyway.

“Shit,” he mutters as Dan turns over onto the little free space on the mattress next to him, breathing heavily. “That was good.”

“Yeah.” Dan’s eyes are closed.

Jonah looks up at the ceiling. Glazed, unfocused, mind wandering. “That’s the first time you’ve touched me since we got here.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” He glances over at Dan, whose eyes are open again. He’s studying Jonah, clearly trying to read him, but – evidently – coming up short. “Just an observation.”

“I’m not – it’s not you. It’s your family. It’s just weird.”

“We’re normal.”

“Except for the part where your stepdad starts interrogating me about my sex life in the living room.”

Jonah rolls his eyes. “Thanks for not being truthful about that.”

“I _should’ve_ told the truth,” Dan says. “‘As a matter of fact, Mark, I do fuck on the regular. Specifically, your stepson.’”

“Yeah? Why don’t you spend the holidays with your family, if we’re so fucked-up by your metric?”

Dan doesn’t say anything, and at first Jonah wonders if he’s overstepped a boundary. There’s a quiet pause, maybe thirty seconds, and then he says, “We just don’t – that’s not my role.”

“Oh,” says Jonah, unsure of how to parse that. He lets Dan take his time, because this is unusual, he almost never opens up like this, and he doesn’t want to break it. He stares up at the ceiling until Dan breaks the silence again.

“They’re normal. It’s not that they’re really dysfunctional or anything. It’s just that my brother has always been – Dave’s the one who did what they wanted him to do. He stayed in fucking Rochester and works in commercial real estate and has two kids and a wife and my parents see the grandkids all the time and everybody’s happy. And I stay in D.C. and call my mom on Sundays and we see each other maybe once a year and it just works better like that.”

“When was the last time you went back?”

Dan breathes in. There’s a beat before he answers. “Couple years ago. I had a – a bad week. I just needed to get out of D.C.”

“And?”

“It went about as well as you think.”

Jonah’s still staring up at the ceiling, watching the incipient morning light spread across the ceiling as it comes in through the slats of the blinds. “Guess so,” he mutters.

“I’m not missing anything,” Dan says calmly, like he’s convinced himself of it. Then, with more energy, he adds, “Anyway, we should get up. I can’t do this sharing-feelings bullshit anymore.”

“Also, I mean, it’s Christmas,” Jonah points out. “Kids and shit. We should probably take a shower before we go out there.”

 

They leave the following afternoon. Jonah’s mom pulls him aside as Dan’s packing up the car. Jonah’s shaking off the last of his cousins' kids when his mom hands him a note.

“Tell Dan he’s welcome back any time,” she says as she kisses him on both cheeks. “Drive safely. Love you, J.J.”

Jonah waits until the door is shut behind him until he unfolds the note. In his mom’s handwriting, it reads, _Nice to see you with someone on your own level – XO Mom._

He looks at it in confusion, reads it over a few times. Because this is it, isn’t it? The proof he was waiting for. Intangible proof that Dan can’t ignore, that it’s not _just Jonah_ , that other people see them for what they obviously, truly are. He’s spent so long waiting for Dan to freak out, to realize that this is _a real fucking relationship._ But somehow, he doubts it’ll be enough.

He glances over at Dan, who’s behind the wheel and giving him an irritated look of confusion as he hits the horn once, sharply. Back down to the note in his hand. Then he crumples it with one hand and stows it in his jacket pocket before jogging to the passenger side door and climbing in.

“What’s on the paper?” Dan asks as they back out of the driveway. Jonah blinks twice, a little off-guard, before answering.

“Nothing. Mom stuff. Aunt Kathy’s new email address.”

“Ah.”

 

* * *

 

 

**X.**

It seems like a cruel joke, almost, that the thing that pushed them to the breaking point could possibly be so minor. It was a stupid idea. Jonah can at least admit that much. He orders a ring and when it arrives in the mail, he slips it on before he meets Dan at their usual bar after work.

The thing is, he likes how it looks. He’s not a romantic, and he doesn’t even think he really wants to get married – he’d do it for an ulterior purpose, but it’s not something he thinks about. But a ring is a ring – all that really matters is what people read into it. And frankly, it’d be nice to walk into a place and communicate to everyone there that he’s not looking to hook up, that he’s going home to someone. To _something_. To a commitment.

By this point, Jonah doesn’t know what he’s expecting. When Dan sees the ring, he does a double take before his whole body tenses. Moments later, he’s stalking out of the bar without another word, and Jonah’s loping after him, trying to catch up during their entire walk back to the house. They slam through the door, Dan still chillingly silent, and Jonah chases him down to the bedroom before they finally come face-to-face.

“Is _this_ what finally got you?” Jonah knows he’s speaking too loudly. He doesn’t have the energy to modulate, and he hates that he gets like this at times, everything coming out of him at once with no filter. But he doesn’t stop himself; he couldn’t if he tried. “A fucking ring? Jesus, Dan, after everything—”

“You’re acting like this is some kind of commitment.” Dan spits the last word, _commitment_ , like it’s the foulest swear word he could possibly manage, and Jonah can only feel himself getting angrier.

“I told you, it’s just a fucking, I don’t know, ruse. I don’t need chicks flocking to me if I know I’m only going to turn them down. I got tired of being a disappointment.” And it’s half true, and the other half, the thing he doesn’t say, is that he got tired of the _other_ women looking at him like something they had to avoid; thought that it would be easier to communicate that he wasn’t there to hit on them right off the bat. But that part doesn’t sound as good out loud. “If I wanted a _real_ ring, I wouldn’t sit around waiting for one from you.”

“What,” Dan says in a cold, measured tone, “the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve spent the past three years trying to make you acknowledge that this might be a real thing. You think your coworkers buy me as your ‘roommate’? Or that nobody notices when I drape myself all over you like a fucking sloth in public? I don’t give a shit. I don’t need anything to change and I don’t want anything to change. I _like_ this. But pardon _the fuck_ out of me for wanting to at least know what the hell to call it, or for not wanting to go to a bar with a sign around my neck that says ‘I’m with the one in the blue striped tie, or maybe not _with_ , but we used to work together and now we live together and we fuck and I make sure he takes his fucking medication and we spent last Christmas with my fucking mom and dad but he called it a ‘networking opportunity’ the whole time.’ I thought a ring might be easier than disclosing all of that. Clearly I was wrong.”

Dan bears down on him, steps closer and shakes his head with knives in his eyes and on his breath. “You don’t have the right to just make decisions like this. You don’t get to make that choice.”

“And you do? You get to just control everything in this relationship?”

_“Stop calling it that!”_

They’re shouting. Jonah’s dimly aware of that, somewhere in the back of his mind. He hasn’t been able to make Dan snap like this in… a long time, actually. The thing that fucks with him is that he’s missed it. The masochist in him craves these moments: pulling the rubber band until it snaps and stings, digging the end of the paper clip beneath his fingernails, picking at Dan until he swings back. So it’s weird that as Dan presses closer to him, pushes him down to a sitting position on their bed – _their_ bed, it’s not even Dan’s bed anymore, it’s the same one they’ve been sharing for three fucking years – it’s weird that he’s feeling like it might be the last time. Like he’s fucked everything up and this is going to be the One Last Night and then tomorrow he’s going to quietly go on Craigslist and start looking at apartments and move his things out of Dan’s house and move on with his life. And Dan’s fumbling with his belt buckle one-handed while yanking at Jonah’s hair with the other, muttering “You arrogant fucking prick,” and Jonah shucks his t-shirt and pushes it out of his mind and allows Dan to use him the way they both like, the way they’ve gotten used to, the way they both like it. They fuck like it’s the last time and maybe, for all Jonah knows, it is.

When they’re done, Dan slides out of bed and disappears into the bathroom. Jonah can hear the shower running and busies himself with his phone, scrolling through Twitter, glancing at Facebook. There’s a tagged photo from the bachelor party they attended two nights ago on his timeline, and he’s got his arm around Dan and a beer in his other hand and they look just a little bit removed from the rest of the room. He doesn’t remember what they were saying to each other just before the camera went off and he doubts that it really matters, because all that really counts is what other people read into them. And he just wanted to know. He doesn’t need it to change, and he wouldn’t want it to be any different. He just needs other people to know that it’s not open for questions, that even though they’re “not a couple,” neither of them has slept with anyone else in almost three years and they have a system to designate whose turn it is to do laundry and last time Dan had a panic attack, Jonah fucking _took care of him_ and didn’t even say a word after the fact. He’s okay with whatever it is. He just wishes he knew what the fuck to call it.

Dan comes back in, wrapped in a towel, his hair wet. He busies himself picking up the clothes puddled on the floor; he carefully re-racks his suit and tosses the rest in the hamper, and then begins dressing again, pulling on boxers and a Cornell athletics t-shirt even though Jonah knows for a fact he never played collegiate sports a day in his life.

Jonah’s staring at the ring again. It cost twenty bucks and came from Amazon and isn’t even particularly nice-looking; it’s bulky and made of titanium and a little bit too small on his finger. He can see Dan looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and he heaves a sigh and moves to twist it off his finger, when Dan speaks up.

“You don’t have to… don’t do that.”

Jonah glances up, makes eye contact, raises both eyebrows. He can see Dan’s jaw tighten, as if he’s about to say something else, but nothing else comes out.

Jonah clears his throat. “Okay,” he says.

“Yeah.”

And it really is okay.

 

**_Fin._ **


End file.
